Where was The Wheel of Time filmed?

Season 1 of The Wheel of Time ended with awesome displays of the One Power and Trollocs aplenty. One of the show’s strongest suits was its visuals, with alpine hills, bustling cities, rocky cliffs, ominous forests, and desert fortresses all melding together to create a feast for the eyes. The Wheel of Time filmed many of its largest scenes in real locations, often opting for breathtaking scenery over green screen studios. So if you’ve been curious about where the show was shot, fear not: we’ve got you covered.

The Wheel of Time filmed in a few different locations. Most of the first season’s scenes were shot in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia and Spain.

The production’s main hub of operations is Jordan Studios, a massive complex that Amazon built for the show in the Czech Republic city of Prague. Named after The Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan, the studio is 350,000 square feet and contains everything from a costuming department to stunt gyms to writing offices and “football-field-size” sound stages. It was a huge investment on the part of Amazon that showed their commitment to the series pretty early on, and is part of why the show was able to do things like build the village of Emond’s Field from scratch only to burn it down in the series premiere. The fictional town was constructed in a quarry only 40 kilometers outside of Prague, where the studio is based. Jordan Studios is also where most of the scenes for Tar Valon and Shadar Logoth were shot.

Wheel of Time filming locations

The bulk of shooting was done in the Czech Republic. This accounted for a lot of the outdoor scenes, the Two Rivers, and Fal Dara. Some of the more mountainous settings, like the rocky overlook outside the city of Baerlon in Episode 3, are in Croatia. Slovenia also accounted for quite a few outdoor shots, especially in the early episodes. Many of the shots of our heroes riding horses beside majestic alpine mountains were filmed in Slovenia. That includes the shot of Egwene (Madeline Madden) and Rand (Josha Stradowski) above.

“Even for the actors and crew, trying to go to places and, as much as we can, put stuff in camera, even if we end up augmenting or enhancing it later with visual effects,” showrunner Rafe Judkins told VFX Voice. “There is a scene where two of our leads, Rand al’Thor and Egwene al’Vere, have a conversation sitting on a rock looking down at their home in this Alpine environment. We could have easily used a rock with some grass around it in Prague, but we actually took the actors to the top of a huge mountain pass in Slovenia. What we did was add in their home village of the Two Rivers and the two actual rivers at the bottom of the shot, but the rest of it is in camera.”

Scenes in the city of Ghealdan, which we saw the false Dragon Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte) capture during the cold open for Episode 4, were filmed in Segovia, Spain. There were also other city shots done in Dubrovnik, Croatia, which should sound familiar to any Game of Thrones fan; it stood in for King’s Landing on that show.

One of the last locations that The Wheel of Time filmed at was the Canary Islands in Spain. Originally the show was planned to do a more extensive shoot there, but due to COVID-19 delays they ended up having to reorient. However, the ending beach scene in the season finale was filmed at the Canary Islands and did make it into final cut of the show. Both the Canary Islands and Morocco are reported filming locations for season 2.

There’s no shortage of beautiful scenery in The Wheel of Time’s first season. Given the emphasis put on utilizing natural locations, that’s a trend we’re likely to see continue.

Season 1 of The Wheel of Time is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. Season 2 is currently filming.

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